MDRN / Programmes / Block 1 of 3
Foundation 12
Learn the six shapes and build a week that survives a bad one.
12 weeks 3 monthly documents · one dial: the rep band on whichever movement leads · then Load 12
The three months
The skeleton never moves: the same six patterns, the same number of sessions, the same warm up, the same plate. What moves inside it is one dial, one step at a time.
- Open, weeks 1 to 4
- Your bands, written down. Every session, every set, the weight goes on the sheet. This month is the measurement everything after it is compared to.
- Press, weeks 5 to 8
- Whatever leads drops a rung: fewer reps, more weight, the same number of sets. Nothing else moves, because one change at a time is how you know which change did it.
- Prove, weeks 9 to 12
- The lead sits at the top of the block and the rest of the session goes a rung longer. The last week takes two sets of everything, on purpose.
It has an end date, and it is yours
Three monthly documents of four weeks each, so a block ends three months after it starts and your plan prints the date. A calendar month is a few days longer than four weeks, and those spare days are the ones that absorb a session you missed.
There is no cohort and no countdown here. We have no members to put you in a group with, and a seat count or a clock ticking down would be something we invented to make you anxious. A date on your own calendar is a real deadline and it needs neither.
What finishing it means
A block asks for your sessions a week times 12. On three a week that is 36, and it is finished at 24 of them, not 36. A number nobody reaches only teaches people they are bad at this, so the finish line is set where a real life can cross it.
Who it is for
Anybody starting, restarting, or coming back after a long gap, and anybody who has trained for years without ever writing anything down.
Who it is not for
Three honest answers. If one of them is you, this is the wrong block and we would rather you knew now.
- Somebody already running a programme they like. Finish that one. Two programmes at once is one programme done badly.
- Somebody who wants a specific lift to go up on a schedule. This builds a base across six patterns rather than driving one number.
- Somebody who will not write the weights down. The whole block is a measurement, and an unmeasured Foundation 12 is just twelve weeks of exercise.
What it will not do
It will not make you lose or gain a stated amount of anything, and nothing here is timed to a result. It is twelve weeks of a particular shape of work, described in advance so you can check we did what we said.
The six movements in it
The same six in every block. Each has its own page with the cue, the faults that actually show up, and the version that needs no equipment.
- Goblet squatSquat
- Push-upPush
- Romanian deadliftHinge
- One-arm rowPull
- Farmer carryCarry
- PlankBrace
What comes after it
Load 12. Load 12 moves a different dial: both ends of the band, in opposite directions.
Nothing on this page is medical advice and none of it is a diagnosis. MDRN is a general wellness product. If anything in your health picture needs attention, talk to a clinician.
See one before you decide.
A sample plan, built by the real engine, is the whole first four weeks of this with the sessions and the bands in it. Your own is free and takes three minutes.